The present invention relates to an electronic commerce system and method. In particular, the present invention relates to methods of, and systems for, conducting a transaction between a user of a remote communications device and a second party.
Mobil commerce, also known as m-commerce, is gaining greater market penetration as the use of electronic networks (such as the Internet) become more popular. Mobile commerce involves the execution of a transaction between a user of a remote communications device (e.g., a mobile communications device) and a second party, such as a merchant, a bank, a back-end settlement system (e.g., a transaction processing system of a financial institution), etc.
The general process steps associated with conducting a transaction between two parties using mobile commerce includes activating a mobile device and executing a software application suitable for conducting a transaction. A real time secure communications session is established between the mobile device and the other party over a communications channel to facilitate the transaction.
Parameters of a real time transaction are established, such as monetary amounts, account information, product and/or service identification, delivery information, etc. Often, these parameters are established via user input to the software application. For example, the software application may facilitate the transmission of an electronic form from the other party to the mobile device over the communications channel. The electronic form may include entry fields, which correspond to the parameters of the transaction, e.g., product identification, price, delivery, etc. As the user enters information into the form, the information establishes at least some of the parameters of the transaction.
A real time transaction data structure is created by the software application, which includes the parameters of the transaction previously obtained. The real time transaction data structure may be augmented with a digital certificate suitable for authenticating the data structure as is known in the art. The real time transaction data structure and digital certificate, if any, is transferred to the other party over the communications channel. A response is received at the mobile device from the other party and additional steps necessary to complete the transaction are performed.
The above described conventional process for conducting a mobile transaction suffers from a substantial disadvantage in that no progress can be made in facilitating the transaction when the secure communications session over the communications channel is not established. Indeed, there are often times when the mobile device is not in communication with the other party and such communication cannot be established, for example, due to failures in certain equipment, excessive loads over the communications channel, etc. Thus, the user must wait until a later time to execute the steps necessary to conduct a transaction, despite that the present time is most convenient.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for new methods of, and systems for, conducting a transaction between a user of a remote communications device and a second party such that at least some of the steps in conducting the transaction may be executed despite a temporary absence of, or capability of establishing, communication between the remote communications device and the second party.